


The Birthday Post

by paladin13



Category: Fashion Model RPF, Karlie Kloss - Fandom, Kaylor - Fandom, Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Birthday Fluff, Engagement, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:42:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13647828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paladin13/pseuds/paladin13
Summary: "Come on Taylor, get your shit together. You can do this."Taylor shakes out her hands in front of her and stretches a little, trying to calm the shaking. Her anxiety must be radiating off of her in waves, because it seems to have caught the attention of her cats. Even Meredith, who generally regards her mother with a look of disdainful indifference, deigned to rub against her legs as she sat on the couch earlier. Both cats now lounge in Taylor's office, where she sits at her laptop, trying desperately to grow a pair and follow through with the idea that had come to her at 6am, making her sit bolt upright, unable to sleep, much like the morning she'd realized that her fifth album would be a pop album called 1989. Only this revelation made that once earth-shattering decision look positively mundane. Just as she had known that the choice to leave behind her country roots would ruffle a few feathers, but ultimately be the best thing for her, for herself, she knew that what she'd come up with had the potential to make her happier than she had ever been...if it didn't cost her her career.





	The Birthday Post

"Come on Taylor, get your shit together. You can do this."

Taylor shakes out her hands in front of her and stretches a little, trying to calm the shaking. Her anxiety must be radiating off of her in waves, because it seems to have caught the attention of her cats. Even Meredith, who generally regards her mother with a look of disdainful indifference, deigned to rub against her legs as she sat on the couch earlier. Both cats now lounge in Taylor's office, where she sits at her laptop, trying desperately to grow a pair and follow through with the idea that had come to her at 6am, making her sit bolt upright, unable to sleep, much like the morning she'd realized that her fifth album would be a pop album called 1989. Only this revelation made that once earth-shattering decision look positively mundane. Just as she had known that the choice to leave behind her country roots would ruffle a few feathers, but ultimately be the best thing for her, for herself, she knew that what she'd come up with had the potential to make her happier than she had ever been...if it didn't cost her her career.

Once she'd realized she wasn't going back to sleep, Taylor had hopped in the shower, hoping the warm water would wash away her mounting fears, or at least steel her resolve to do what she knew needed to be done. As she shampooed her hair, she thought about the past year. The ups and downs of her relationship with the love of her life. She truly believed that was the case. That she'd found the one. And over and over again, over the past year, she'd fucked up. And the fact that they were still together had to mean something. If they could survive the disasters since this date a year ago, they could survive anything. Rinsing the last of the soap from her body, Taylor shut off the water. It was time. Dressed in ripped jeans and her genius sweater, Taylor padded down the stairs, letting the two cats trail behind her. She fed them, grabbing a yogurt for herself, then made her way to the office. Where she sits, even now, trying to decide if she's going to throw up, or if she can start recording the video.

Unable to click the button to start the laptop recording, she opts instead for the easy part. Picking up her almost brand-new iPhone (rose gold, a replacement for the one she'd shattered the night in July when her world seemed like it was crashing down around her), she clicks into the Layout app, planning to make a simple collage. Her camera roll is full of her private pics, some from as long as three years ago, others from just the other week, when they'd stolen a few hours together. Given the enormous weight this simple Instagram post would carry, Taylor knew these choices mattered. She wanted to tell the story of their relationship, start to present, with every hope of a long future. Ultimately, she decided on a never before seen photo from Big Sur, the one where their lips met, and her eyes flew open with the sheer electricity of the kiss. And the one in Karlie's place, a little over a year ago, when they'd tried to make funfetti cake and ended up rolling on the floor, covered in sprinkles and frosting, but with no cake. And the one from just a month ago, when Tom and Luke had stumbled downstairs at the Rhode Island house and caught the two of them cuddling on the couch and snapped a photo of the sleeping couple, wrapped in each other's arms. And finally, to round out the collection, one from the shoot for her fragrance, Incredible Things, when they'd painted her hands like a rainbow, and she'd made them do the same to Karlie's and they'd made rainbow heart-hands and just for a moment, Taylor had considered telling the world the truth.

She and Karlie had fought more times than she liked to remember. Some about the necessity to hide their relationship. Many about the lengths Taylor was willing to go to to keep their secret. Still more about the stupid crap that all couples fight about, like what to do about holidays, and how Karlie is always late, and Taylor is too uptight, and the way Taylor likes the silverware drawer arranged, and weather or not Joe and Mere would kill each other once they move in together. Taylor knows that whatever she does tomorrow probably decides the endgame. After how shitty last year's birthday had gone, she wasn't about to screw it up again.

Still unable to bring herself to film the confessional video she knows is going to have to accompany the Insta post, she texts Jack, asking if he still has the disc onto which they'd burned the _real_ version of You Are in Love. She knows what she wants to do with it. A slideshow of memories, the moments she describes in the song. A candid laughing on a New York street, sunlight glinting off the silver buttons of Karlie's coat, one of which fell off that night. Taylor put it in her pocket, planning to sew it back on, but never made it that far. It still sits on Taylor's dresser. A photo Taylor snapped of Karlie driving, hunched over because she's too tall for Taylor's car. The Starbucks cup Karlie brought her before Hyde Park, on which she'd instructed the barista to write "My Girl" with a heart after it, which isn't the coffee at midnight they'd shared to inspire the song, but which reminds Taylor of how thoughtful her girlfriend really is. A selfie Karlie snapped the day she gave Taylor her T necklace, with their matching charms front and center. The photo from Big Sur where they look up together. The two of them wearing nothing but each other's shirts and their underwear, laughing in the kitchen because Taylor can cook literally anything Karlie has ever asked for but always burns toast. There are thousands of snapshots, and Taylor finds it easy to get caught up in arranging them, playing the song over and over in her head to get the timing right, hoping that Jack will come through, but planning a back-up just in case.

Her reverie is interrupted by a text coming though on her phone. "This one?" it asks, accompanied by an audio file. She knows almost immediately that he has hit the nail on the head. When she taps the play button, she hears her own voice, giggling as she says "Okay, this is how I originally wrote it. I know we can't put it on the album like this, but I'd like a copy, just in case, you know?"

As the original pronouns echo through the house, another message comes through. "Morning Princess!!!" It has just gone 9am. Taylor has been up for 3 hours, spent most of them stressing about something she still isn't sure she can pull off, and also accomplished a lot. In Italy, where her Sunshine is spending her birthday tomorrow, it is nearly dinner time. Taylor hates the distance, but she gets it. It was too hard to imagine another birthday in hiding. They decided this weeks ago. Before July happened. Taylor is struck again by how thoughtful her girlfriend is, that she waited until a reasonable time of the morning to text, even though she didn't have to.

"Morning Sunshine!!! Happy Birthday-eve!!! What do you think of this for your birthday post?" Taylor inserts the collage she's made into the text string. As fast as the word 'read' appears under the little blue bubble on her phone, the screen flips to a photo of Karlie doing the infamous 'tongue thing' Kaylor fans are always going on about, and the song switches to Riptide.

"Hey Baby! Did you like it?" Taylor's voice is half an octave higher than normal, between nerves and excitement.

"Did I like it?" Karlie too has raised her pitch, "It's incredible! But babe, are you sure? Those are some, um, obvious photos there."

Taylor explains that, with Karlie's consent, the caption will be even more obvious. After tomorrow, the whole world will know the true nature of their relationship. That they are not just friends, but girlfriends. That Taylor isn't dating Tom, and wasn't dating that bastard DJ, and that she has found the one. That she wants the world to know the truth, and that she has a thousand reasons why now is the right moment, but the number one reason is that Karlie makes her happy, and she wants the end of the hiding to be her gift to Karlie for her birthday. And as the two women cry over FaceTime, Karlie accepts. If Taylor is ready, then so is she. They sign off, Karlie already thinking about exactly how she is going to show Taylor her love the next time they see each other, in a few days, when she returns to the states.

Taylor, meanwhile, has realized two things. Her hands are never going to stop shaking, so she might as well film the damn video, and she needs to get to Italy. If she leaves now, she could be there by noon on Karlie's birthday, maybe, if the weather and all the airports she's going to have to refuel at along the way cooperate. She calls her pilot, requesting he get the plane ready. To his credit, it's been fueled and ready to go since he saw a certain Miss Kloss's snapchat story about leaving for Italy. He knows his employer. Apparently better than she knows herself. She dashes off a text to Austin in the car on the way to the airport, requesting that he take care of the cats while she's gone. And then she composes an email to her parents, to Scott Borchetta, to Tree. It doesn't take long to type the word 'Sorry.' The rest of the message will be populated with links, once she's posted everything she needs to say. That Apple letter had nothing on this. This will make or break her, and she knows it. "It's gonna be forever, or it's gonna go down in flames" she sings to herself, knowing that it will be worth it as long as she has Karlie.

On the plane, somewhere over Nebraska, she finally records the video. She's still in ripped jeans and her favorite sweater. She is alone in the passenger compartment of the plane. Just behind the screen of her laptop, which she's using to film so she can see how she looks as she speaks is a small velvet box, reminding her of what this video really means. What it is really for. And what she gets if she pulls this off. She titles the video Mea Culpa – fancy Latin for 'my bad.' The video captures perfectly how she feels in this moment. Her hands shake, and when she finally stills them, her leg picks up where they left off. She explains, in soft words, how the 1989 era had brought her to the biggest roller-coaster ride of her life. From the ultimate highs of sold-out stadiums and her second Album of the Year at the Grammys, to the rock bottom lows of fighting with the love of her life, and the disaster that July 2016 had been. How those highs had been everything she'd ever wanted professionally. Over a million copies sold the first week. Top album of 2014, even though it was released late in the year. Grammys, and Billboards, and BMI naming an award after her. She made over $170 million in 2015. And after all of that, she realized she still wasn't happy. Because no amount of professional success or cold hard cash can mask the pain of hiding who you really are. The fear that one day the skeletons in your closet will pop out and ruin you.

She explains that she's justified the steps she's taken to protect her image by relating it to what everyone does on social media, carefully crafting an image that puts forth your best self, but on a much larger and more global scale. She explains that being in the closet is about more than just a music career for many members of the LGBT community. That it can be about safety and security and a matter of life or death. But that she knows some people will still feel hurt and betrayed, because she led them to believe things about her that weren't true. Because she lied by omission, and because she let the media portray her in a way that hid who she really is, and did nothing to stop them. She apologizes to the LGBT community for not being a better ally while she was in the closet, and pledges to do better going forward, because as she said at the GLAAD awards, 'no one can judge us, and no one can stop us.' She tells the world about her amazing girlfriend. How she can't believe Karlie still loves her after all the shit she's put her through. How strong she is, inside and out, and how her visible beauty pales in comparison to the beauty of her heart. She finishes by introducing her newest single and music video, from which she will collect zero profits, because every dime that would have gone to her will be going to LGBT charities.

She posts the video on her YouTube page, listed as private for now. She uploads the music video she made to the track Jack sent her, also private for the moment. She builds her queue on tumblr, preparing to post first the birthday collage and loving caption, then Mea Culpa, then You Are in Love, and then a link to the single on iTunes. She's never loaded her own music into iTunes before, she has people for that, but she does it now, setting it to spontaneously debut at midnight, eastern daylight time, August 3. She is well aware that in Italy, Karlie is already 24. They've texted their goodnights, Taylor never letting on that she is in the air. She is still on track to get there by lunchtime, and has finally revealed her whereabouts to one person, and unexpected ally – Karlie's friend Josh. It is his job to make sure Karlie goes into the restaurant alone for lunch. Josh is the one who has made the reservation, who has bought out an entire room for Karlie's party. Taylor will arrive first, and he will have an excuse for Karlie to be escorted alone to the table. Taylor can only hope that Karlie won't have checked social media before lunch, or most of her surprises will be blown. Everything is scheduled to go live at 6am Italy time, and Taylor won't be there for another 6 hours after that.

After the stop in Maine to refuel, Taylor manages to fall into a fitful sleep. After a nearly three hour nap, she sets the videos public, pastes links where they need to go, and waits for midnight. She is barely able to hit post in Instagram, setting the whole thing into motion. She drops her phone and has to dive under the seat, delaying the post for a whole minute. In a way, that calms her fears. Her videos are live, her tumblr queue is posting without her, there is no going back, the internet is forever. She hits post. A few seconds later, she posts to Twitter, then Facebook. She checks iTunes and sees that her surprise single is also live. Because it is a random Wednesday, no one is expecting new music, especially from Taylor Swift. She is the first to download her own single, and she buys it only to make sure she didn't accidentally post static again. Finally, she sends her email to her parents and advisors. There is nothing they can do about it now. What's done is done. Knowing that, Taylor is able to sleep a bit more.

An hour before her arrival in Italy, Taylor wakes up to get ready. She puts on an elegant turquoise dress, simple and classic. She carefully straightens her hair, wishing she had a team with her. She puts on a minimalistic makeup look, eyeliner, but a nude lip. Her goal is to slip into the country unnoticed. She puts the box in her purse, then checks a dozen times to make sure it's there. She checks her phone for word from Josh. She has hundreds of missed notifications, but she doesn't care. The only ones that matter bear the names Josh or Karlie. For all Karlie knows, it is 2am where Taylor is, but Taylor knows that if Karlie had seen any of the videos and links, she would have heard from her anyway. But she's heard nothing. Josh has done his job, for all his faults.

She enters the restaurant from the back door, striding past awestruck sous-chefs and into the room Josh has reserved. She paces the room in her Manolos, a fitting choice for an Italian proposal. A man pokes his head into the room to tell her Mr. Kushner and Miss Kloss are outside, and Taylor's stomach flips. It's like the feeling you get before the car drops out from under you on the Tower of Terror. She forces herself to sit down at the table, her hand in her purse, the small velvet box a reassuring weight in her hand. She hears a voice just outside say, in heavily accented English "just through this door, Miss Kloss," and then the room fills with sunshine and Taylor can't breathe and her eyes are filling with tears and so are Karlie's and she's not sure how it happened, but they're embracing in the middle of the room and her lips are on Karlie's and it's like time has stopped and yet is also racing forward almost as fast as Taylor's heart.

For the first time in her life, Taylor can't find words. Karlie goes from being thrilled to see her girlfriend to slightly concerned, because she has never seen Taylor speechless, in almost three years together. Still at a loss, Taylor grabs Karlie's phone, typing in her own birthday to unlock it. She carefully navigates to her own tumblr page, scrolling to the birthday collage that Karlie has already seen. She manages to breathe out "scroll up." Karlie tears up once again, watching her girlfriend confess her love for her to the entire world. The video has millions of hits and it is only 6am in New York. Neither girl knows it yet, but within a couple of hours, Taylor will take down YouTube, tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. People will posit that it is ISIS, or Russia, or Anonymous, but the real cause of the total collapse of social media is Taylor Swift finally finding love, and telling the world.

By the time her team and family read the email, the links won't even work, and they won't know what she's sorry for. Her phone will blow up with calls from all directions, including one from Worst-Case Scenario Andrea who freaks out because she thinks this is Taylor's suicide note after all the turmoil of July. But overall the response, once people can see what she's said, will be positive. Once social media comes back online, Karlie will post a loving response, featuring a picture of the two of them together, in the restaurant in Italy, the brand new diamond ring on her left hand prominently displayed, as they kiss. They will both fade from the spotlight for the rest of August. Karlie will go back to NYU in September, and Taylor will walk her to her first day of Sophomore year, dressed in a hoodie and a Cardinals hat, holding her fiancée's hand. Taylor will be mildly disappointed that the Westboro Baptist Church doesn't bother to protest her October concert in Austin. Thanksgiving will be spent with the Klosses, Christmas with the Swifts. In between they will spend Taylor's birthday surrounded by all the friends who kept their secret. They will kiss in Times Square at midnight, and vow that 2017 will be their best year ever. And it will. Phoenix, Taylor's sixth album, will have the biggest debut of any album in the last 20 years except for Adele's 25. Every song is about Karlie, openly. Exactly how it should be. And as the girls cuddle together on Taylor's couch, planning their July 4 wedding in Rhode Island, they laugh at how this all came about because Taylor had an epiphany about how to make it up to Karlie for how badly she messed up on her 23rd birthday.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fic in a long time, but this one popped into my head and I couldn't resist. Yeah, it ends abruptly, and I may come back and revise and add parts, but I needed it to hit resolution before I go to bed (and before the date referenced above actually happens, lol), and sadly I am a grown-ass adult who has to work tomorrow so I had to quit while I was ahead. Hope someone finds this and loves it.
> 
> (Originally posted on Wattpad on August 2, 2016)


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